Lovers of bunny rabbits should look away now – there were weekend reports that a stage version of the 1980s thriller Fatal Attraction is destined for the West End before Christmas.

The 1987 film, which grossed $350m, reputedly caused anguish to would-be adulterers across the world and outrage to feminists. Its plot centred on a New York lawyer's weekend affair with a publisher who then wreaks havoc with her increasingly deranged pursuit of him and his family, including the infamous "bunny boiler" scene in which she leaves his child's pet rabbit simmering in a pan of water.

Glenn Close, the actor who played Alex, the thwarted mistress, told an interviewer two years ago: "Men still come up to me and say, 'You scared the shit out of me.' Sometimes they say, 'You saved my marriage.'"

The stage version is expected to be somewhat less violent than the film and more in keeping with the original short story on which it was based and the wishes of James Dearden, the British film-maker who wrote the script. Close reportedly refused for a fortnight to shoot the culminating scene in which she was finally shot in a bath tub after making one final attempt to stab her former lover, played in the film by Michael Douglas.

She and psychiatrists had argued that such a character would be more likely to kill themselves than pursue vengeance. Feminist writers criticised the plot's transformation of the deserted mistress into a vengeful stalker and would-be murderer.

Dearden told the Sunday Times that the rabbit's demise would still feature: "Without it the audience might demand their money back."